Netflix drama Beasts of No Nation to hit UK cinemas

Netflix and Curzon announced a partnership today that will put Netflix’s first original film, Beasts of No Nation, in select Curzon Cinemas across the UK. The award-winning, powerful, new film written and directed by Emmy Award winner Cary Fukunaga (True Detective, Sin Nombre) and starring Golden Globe® winner Idris Elba (Luther, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom) will debut in cinemas, following the UK premiere screening at the BFI London Film Festival on 8 October. Netflix debuts the movie in all territories where the world’s leading Internet TV network is available on October 16.

Fukunaga’s Beasts of No Nation screened to critical acclaim at the Venice, Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals in September. Newcomer Abraham Attah, who stars as Agu in the film, was awarded the Marcello Mastroianni Best Young Actor Award at the 2015 Venice Film Festival on Saturday for his lead role in the film. IndieWire’s Eric Kohn noted that “Abraham Attah’s performance marks one of the most impressive screen debuts in recent memory,” with Awards Daily’s Sasha Stone calling the film “a wholly original masterpiece.”

Beasts of No Nation is based on the highly acclaimed novel by Nigerian author Uzodinma Iweala, bringing to life the gripping tale of Agu, a child soldier torn from his family to fight in the civil war of an African country. Attah gives a stunning portrayal of Agu, while Elba dominates the screen in the role of Commandant, a warlord who takes in Agu and instructs him in the ways of war.

Golden Globe winning actor Idris Elba’s performance as Nelson Mandela in The Weinstein Company biopic Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom earned him a Golden Globe and NAACP Image Award nomination. In September 2014, he both starred in, and was executive producer on box office hit No Good Deed, a thriller also starring Taraji Henson. He was also in Pierre Morel’s The Gunman, alongside Sean Penn and Javier Bardem, and he recently completed production on A Hundred Streets, which he is also producing, as well as James Watkin’s Bastille Day and Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book. On television, Elba is best known for his portrayals of the chillingly charismatic drug lord Russell “Stringer” Bell in HBO’s series The Wire as well as detective John Luther in the BBC One series Luther. The latter won a Golden Globe plus he received an additional Golden Globe nomination and three Emmy Award nominations. Elba is currently in production on the final installment of Luther, which will appear as two, two-hour episodes.

Emmy Award winner Cary Fukunaga made his feature film writing and directing debut with the acclaimed film Sin Nombre for Focus Features, for which he won the directing award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. He also directed the 2011 film Jane Eyre. Most recently, he served as director and executive produced for True Detective, earning the 2014 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series.

The film is produced by Amy Kaufman and Cary Fukunaga (who previously worked together on Sin Nombre), Daniela Taplin Lundberg, Riva Marker and Dan Crown for Red Crown Productions, along with Elba. Jeff Skoll and Jonathan King are executive producers for Participant Media; Bill Benenson and Laura Bickford are executive producers; Donna Gigliotti is executive producer for Levantine Films; Elizabeth Koch and Kristina Kendall are executive producers for New Balloon; Todd Courtney is also an executive producer.